Tea is at Four
by Argeus the Paladin
Summary: Kotonoha has ever been doomed to meet the wrong person at the wrong time. In this universe she is more fortunate: She met Bilbo Baggins. Two-shot.
1. Chapter 1

**TEA IS AT FOUR**

 **(A Hobbit + School Days Crossover)**

* * *

 **First and foremost, some initial disclaimers/general notice:**

1) **All disclaimers apply:** The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and all related work were the property of The Good Professor and presently belongs to The Tolkien Estate. School Days (and all the bloody and gruesome and NICE BOAT business within) belongs to 0verflow.  
2) This work was written in early 2018 and originally conceived as a one-shot. However, I didn't _completely_ finished it: there are several blanks that I didn't fill in then, and haven't as at this posting. As such I'm posting it as a _two-_ shot instead, with the promise that the latter half would be completed in a week or two.  
3) Despite what the other half of this crossover is known for, this fic is firmly and completely T-rated. At _worst_.

* * *

 **-1-**

The first time Katsura Kotonoha came across her Happy Place, she was still a child. A stuffed bear in one hand, a bar of sweet in the other, the world before her, bright and beautiful and full of curious things to explore.

If you would ask her _how_ to find this Happy Place of hers, she would say she didn't know, and she'd be telling the truth. The most she'd tell you is, she'd gone to bed, and there it was.

But if you asked her what it _was_ , she would be all too glad to tell you. She would shed the carefully crafted shell of a Katsura Kotonoha plagued by bullying for much of her life for just a moment, and her face would brighten, and she'd tell you all you wanted to know and then some.

It was a hole in the ground. A surprisingly comfortable hole in the ground, too, wide and broad and spacious, though the ceiling wasn't all that high.

There was a great long corridor, lined with dozens upon dozens of round green doors opening into bedrooms and dining-rooms and studies and pantries, and clothes-rooms filled with garments and toys so mesmerizing to her young eyes then.

There was a huge garden lined with green grass and bright flowers, and therefore so much space to run around for that pair of young feet normally bound with the four walls of a mansion cold and lonely.

There were pictures and maps, books and tomes, and enough pen and ink and paper to make her very own should she have liked to.

And most importantly, there was Birubiru.

Who, and what, exactly was Birubiru? As a child Kotonoha had never questioned overly much.

He was a rotund kind of fellow, and so terribly short: she was well growing taller than he was before she went to middle school. He preferred bright clothing, green and yellow and various shades thereof, and with them he'd wear a kindly smile across his round face that was impossible to extinguish. He had a disdain for shoes and slippers that resonated well with a child born and raised in stuffy Tokyo, and why would he need dainty shoes with that carpet of woolly feet-hair of his?

Of all this Kotonoha would not notice until much later on. The little-girl Kotonoha only knew that Birubiru would invite her in, and give her things to eat: tarts and puffs, cream-cakes and seed-cakes, sweets made into the likeness of trees and flowers and Sun and Moon, and if she was lucky, a glass or two of warm, honey-sweet milk.

He would take her into his study and show her maps lovely crafted and passionately annoted; "My mother has been here-and-here," he would say, pointing to a mountain range that split the map into two, and there would be a glow on his face.

He would spend hours and hours telling a wide-eyed Kotonoha tales so outlandish yet so close to home. He would read her poems and riddles, and teach her melodious songs and curious rhymes. Perhaps Kotonoha would never forget that story of how golf was invented: when Birubiru's very own grand-uncle charged the evil goblins on a pony, and whacked his head off with a club sending the ugly thing all the way down a rabbit-hole. That tall tale made her the single most popular story-weaver in her elementary class for all of one week.

He'd taught her other things, simpler yet no less important. That being plain and quiet and unassuming did not mean indifference. That there was no love purer and more rewarding as that love for things that grow and blossom from the earth. That kindness was a thing best freely given, as was the joy of food and songs. And – this was important – that there was value to all things that lived and walked beneath the sun – including her lonesome self.

He'd smoked, too, and enjoyed blowing those smoke-rings that rose to the ceiling, and reveled in the perfect shape and form of the cloud. That Kotonoha disapproved (although she was fond of the smoke-ring as the next little girl) "Why'd you smoke, mister?" she had asked once. "Smoking cause can-can-can-something, doesn't it? And it smells bad!"

She would never stay for too long. After all, she was, as she had been told by her parents during those few times they were around, that she was a princess. Her father's princess, which meant almost as good as the real thing. Which meant she had manners, and manners meant not overstaying her welcome.

And then always Birubiru would see her off, tell her "Tea is at four, pray do come again," and send Kotonoha her merry way.

And then, without fanfare, Katsura Kotonoha would invariably wake up, alone in her fleeting happiness, atop the expensive bed fit for half a dozen of her, that her parents had bought for her sixth birthday.

* * *

For some, growing up meant good things. For others, a mix of the good and the bad. For Kotonoha? Actually not much in the way of good, and a whole lot in the bad way.

Her middle school was bad enough. As the children traded their elementary uniforms for the middle school garbs, they'd left part of their innocence behind. They'd started noticing _differences_. How a girl grew up faster or slower than the rest – that was obvious enough. Or how a classmate's lunch money was more or less than the other's – that was less obvious.

Those friends she'd blend in before as a child, the same boys and girls who'd clapped their hands and cheered when she'd put a foot on the table and made a golfing pose and said "and off went Go-ru-fin-bu-ru's head!", now looked to her as something _not like them_.

Not that the change surprised her overly much. She'd had everything: a big house, more money to splurge if and when she liked than some of her classmates' parents earnt for a month, and of all the girls she grew up the fastest. She'd fill out her uniforms rather nicely, and somehow that made the boy flusters and the girls... well, envious. Needless to say Kotonoha never liked the attention, and particularly disliked the whispering around her.

She'd just learnt to live with it, and retreat to her Happy Place when the going was bad.

Because Birubiru didn't care that she had changed. Birubiru didn't care that the little girl dragging a stuffed bear and a bar of sweet into his hole in the ground one day was growing into a beautiful maiden every passing day. Birubiru didn't care she lived in a huge house, or that her parents were obscenely wealthy.

No, Birubiru cared that she'd come exactly when the clock struck four in the afternoon, as he was putting out cakes and pastry for the afternoon tea. Birubiru cared that she'd knock and wait patiently until he'd open that perfectly round green door. Birubiru cared that she still had a taste for milk and seed-cakes and berry-tarts, and that her endless interests in the books and puzzles and maps in his study had never grown any less.

But now, Kotonoha realized, she would begin asking Birubiru things he had no answer.

Like how Tetsuya-kun from the next class looked really nervous around her, beet-red and all. Or that one day she'd found her table slashed and defaced with so many mean words. Or another time a group of nasty girls cornered her in the washroom and punched her.

"And what did you do?" Birubiru would ask, which was weird because Kotonoha was the one asking for advice.

"I smile when I can and hit back if I have to!" she'd say, and she meant it. She'd now learnt that smiling more often than not would confuse the other kids, and if all else failed it would make _her_ felt better. And there was nothing, she'd thought, inherently wrong with defending herself when bad come to worse either.

Birubiru would then smile, and pat her gently on the shoulder, an act increasingly hard since she was growing taller while he, well, wasn't. "You did well, lass," he would say, and though at once Kotonoha didn't know what she had done so well she was a child in some ways still, and children loved praises as a rule. Then he'd take her into his study, and they'd have another go at yet another long poem passed down from generation to generation.

The names in those poems never quite rolled off her tongue easily as a little girl, and it never got easier. There was Gondo-rin, that great city of the elves in the Elder Days crowned with towers and spire, that much she remembered. Other things did not sound right, and she never memorized them well. Was Tou-a-gon the dragon-slayer, or was it Tourin? Was Eredo-heru the Emperor of the Elves who dueled with the Black Overlord, or was it Fingoru-fin? Was the land of the Grey-elves called Menegurosu, or Doriasu?

Though she did memorize, for good reason, the name _Rushien_ : she adored, adored, _adored_ that brave elven lady who faced that Black Overlord to save her love, not with a sword but with songs. "I want to be like her when I grow up!" she'd say with gusto, and Birubiru would say, "You have all the making of one."

Other times she'd tell Birubiru of her sister, always prefixed with "If Kokoro were here she'd-", and ended with "Would be so fun if she were here." She was proud, and why would she be otherwise? She had the liveliest sister in the whole ward, if not the whole city and that was a big thing to claim, but she'd fight everyone who'd say otherwise.

Those times Birubiru would speak of his family, too, with the same keenness that mirrored his protege. They were weirdly named, too, and did not roll of Kotonoha's tongue at all. All that Kotonoha could retell was that there were _many_ of Birubiru's siblings, cousins and cousins-so-many-times-removed, that if everyone of them were to assemble in one place the whole of the Happy Place wouldn't be enough to house them all.

And then there was cooking!

At some point, a very curious Kotonoha had caught Birubiru stealing to the kitchen in the middle of tea. The table that day had been quite a bit emptier than usual, and it turned out that Birubiru had not count on Kotonoha arriving. It had taken the girl one – one! look at the amazing magic Birubiru was doing with his pots and pans and stove to demand she get a try.

It was a complete disaster.

So much so, that Birubiru would recall years later (not without fondness) the Disaster of the Kitchen of Bag End, a tale of tragic struggle that ended with the heroine Katsura Kotonoha covered from head to toe with soot, batter, sugar and every condiment known to man. Needless to say the girl wasn't amused with the retelling overly much.

Like it or not, as she grew older Kotonoha couldn't help but be grateful for that disaster. Before she'd never learnt to cook, assuming with childish innocence that the divine art of boiling one ingredient with another to create a whole greater than the sum of its part would come naturally – just as her mother had married her father.

In another timeline that would have led to yet greater disaster. Not in this timeline, and not on Birubiru's watch.

In time he'd taught her, well, not all he knew because apparently Birubiru had spent most of his lifetime cooking for himself, but as much as she would have liked. He'd taught her to use knives without cutting herself or other people (at least not unintentionally so), to heat pans just right, when to use oil and when tallow would be the better thing, how to use herb so they didn't clash with each other, and most importantly, the oft-underestimated yet essential art of distinguishing between sugar and salt.

In exchange she'd tell him those recipes her servants would make her at home. It was not long before Birubiru's teas had some distinctly Japanese treats: Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki (except made with eels rather than squid), homemade ramen and katsudon, and on at least one occasion there was even taiyaki, except stuffed with berries and apple rather than red beans.

Like before, she would never stay for too long. Manner, this time, had little to do with it, and more like a middle-school Kotonoha would have less time to herself than a elementary Kotonoha.

Like before, Birubiru would see her off, tell her "Tea is at four, pray do come again," and send Kotonoha her merry way.

Like before, without fanfare, Katsura Kotonoha would invariably wake up, alone in her fleeting happiness, atop the expensive bed fit for four of her, that her parents had bought for her sixth birthday.

Unlike before, her happiness would be crowned by a resolve she didn't know she had.

Because somewhere, dream or real, there was a place where she would always be welcomed.

* * *

Middle school had passed by like a whirlwind, and every visit to her Happy Place had made it just a bit faster.

The bullying hurt, and the unwelcome gazes never made her any less comfortable.

But Kotonoha had Birubiru and a place she was safe to recover, relax, have fun and plan her next moves, and that was a luxury people like her did not often have.

It was on a rainy Sunday during her last year in middle school that Kotonoha realized she had become something of a young woman instead of a girl, and that the change was irreversible.

It began with a letter under her table. It culminated with a boy making a clumsy confession as the rain pattered outside the window.

It ended with him dipping his head. "I see," he said, and bolted off into the rain.

Kotonoha did not know if it was tears or rainwater that was drenching his face.

Part of her couldn't help but feel guilty and a little regretful at that. Motoyama-kun was a nice boy, bespectacled and slick-haired and bookish to a fault, and the fact alone that he was brave enough to ask meant he would have made for an okay-ish though awkward boyfriend.

But here was the important part: he was looking for a relationship she wasn't sure she was willing to enter, and that mattered more than the trapping of a relationship itself. She wasn't so love-starved she'd jump into the arms of the first person who'd show her some. That she'd made abundantly clear, though in far more polite terms – Kotonoha was well brought up, if not by her parents then by her Happy Place.

The bullying continued until the end of her middle school, as did the occasional leering at her endowment. The asking-out part stopped, though that offered her little in the way of respite. Now the whispers changed: she was somehow both the girl who'd slept around with absolutely everyone with a name _and_ the cold-hearted bitch who would trample the delicate emotions of delicate cute boys for the hell of it. The logic of teenagers, as was the case, boggled the mind.

When she came back to her Happy Place and asked what he thought about the whole unpleasant business, Birubiru just picked up his pipe before Kotonoha could object, and blew for himself a cascade of smoke-ring. "My lass," he said, "as my father said, third time pays for all." He said no more (and blew no more smoke-ring: Kotonoha had snatched away his lung-destroying apparatus before he could), but from the glint of his eyes Kotonoha felt... vindicated. She'd done nothing wrong, and often the knowledge of being in the right alone made all the differences.

Now that her Birubiru had thought her more an adult, he started teaching her something else.

He brought into his study one day so many scrolls, signed and unsigned, and a little leather-bound tome to go with them too, and many a quill and enough ink to last days. "The bedrock of the Shire is kindness on the one hand," he said, "and contracts on the other."

Kotonoha widened her eyes. "Contracts?" she parrotted, not sure if she liked the sound. "What is a contract even good for?" she said. And why should she believe they were anything but poor omen?Those were her parents' favorite syllables to utter, and they would invariably accompany yet another business trip anywhere between half a day to several months.

Birubiru looked mortified for all of a couple seconds. Then he gestured her to sit down – because now she was too tall for his eye-level standing – and then patted her on the shoulder. "My lass," he said, "it's good for a lot of things. So you and the other party knew your rights and obligations, for one. And when you know what you have to do, and what the other people have to do, codified into something accepted by lord and land... you feel secure."

 _Secure_ , he said. Kotonoha closed her eyes for a second and thought. And thought. And thought some more.

She decided she liked the sound of that.

It was with such auspices from Birubiru that Katsura Kotonoha kicked her way into high school, to borrow the popular phrase of the new media, 'like a boss'.

Because she knew if all else failed, one thing remained a constant: "Tea is at four, pray do come again!"

It was a simple thing how that rumor went, when you think about it.

Take a standard high-school ensemble: boys and girls raging with hormones, barely contained by social conventions, boiling underneath with peer pressure and the desire to grow up quickly, and thoroughly confusing between 'liking', 'loving' and 'lusting'.

Now make a good portion of that crowd dysfunctional for various reasons – from bad parenting to literally generations of in-breeding (though of this Kotonoha would, thankfully, have little knowledge of) and everything in between.

Now add a rumor that said, basically, _"If you keep the person you like on your cell-phone wallpaper for three weeks without anyone finding out, your feelings will be answered."_

It was the proverbial spark to the proverbial cache of explosive.

At first Kotonoha paid it no mind. If there was real magic, she thought, then Birubiru would have told her, so much lore as he had shared. Besides, the magic he'd related to her had been infinitely _more_ interesting.

Return-your-love charm? Bah, try 'a brooch that never came undone unless ordered'.

Or firework that sailed into the air in the likeness of dragons taking off.

Or a hundred beautiful things of magic and elf-smith make, that the elves East of the Happy Place were rumored to keep to this day.

Or, or, or, if all else fail, there was the magic of the kitchen, of seed-cakes and honey-milk, of tarts and bacon and egg (poached, not fried), and of Japanese dishes made in thoroughly unconventional manner they barely resembled Japanese dishes any more.

Besides, she'd had her hands full living her life already.

You see, every version of Katsura Kotonoha across the multiverse was particularly skilled with some sort of melee weapon, from knives to saws to crowbar – and if she'd had an opportunity to lay her hands on one manner of Numenorean sword long lost or another, she would probably be able to swing it as well as the next Chieftain of the Dunedain.

This Kotonoha was no exception, with the sole difference that she was aware of that proficiency. It was oft a small miracle how much more one would appreciate their strength given just the tiniest of self-esteem.

She'd signed up for the school kendo team, and never looked back. It was fun, it helped with stress, it made her more _aware_ of herself. And, when she was alone at night, she'd think to herself that being a kendoka _itself_ was like telegraphing a message, that this girl, this meek-looking, bright-eyed girl was _not_ to be trifled with.

Of course there was Kanou Otome and her posse, but as long as they were unable to _physically_ overpower Kotonoha, she'd learnt how to shut away their words of knives and razors. Really, their bullying ways were no more creative than the meanest she'd seen in middle school.

There was also a certain Sawanaga Taisuke, who had been trying to butt his way into her life through a variety of silly and increasingly creepy ways. She made every attempt to ignore him – and with every passing day he was coming that much closer to make her do something regrettably drastic.

Because of those and other lesser things not worth a mention, Katsura Kotonoha would go to sleep with her _shinai_.

But then there was only so much a bamboo sword could do.

Kotonoha had no idea when she'd been photographed – without her consent no less. But when this girl, Saionji Sekai, approached her with an open hand and a smile, something within her went _off_.

Said someone was interested in her.

Said he was this really, _really_ nice guy, and she'd be missing out not to give him a chance.

Said she was playing this matchmaker because she couldn't stand her idiot friend being a drooling idiot any more, believing in a silly charm and all.

Kotonoha had more than half a mind to tell this new friend, that if Saionji's precious Itou really respected her, he would _not_ have taken a photo of her without explicit consent. But that would be so impolite and therefore unbecoming of a princess of her father's.

The other part of her, that part where the giddy maiden high-schooler dwelt, where self-esteem couldn't reach all that well, was moved. There was someone _really_ into her, and all at once the status quo was changed.

"I'll think about it," came a cool-sounding answer, though deep inside Kotonoha was anything but.

* * *

That night, Kotonoha's visit to her Happy Place did not go well.

She came just as the clock struck four, and was just about to rap on that perfectly round green door when she realized it was not perfect any more. There was now a peculiar sign scratched into the lower part of the door.

"Sorry, no adventures here!" she heard Birubiru's voice, angrier than it normally was. "Nasty, disturbing uncomfortable things, make you late for dinner!"

"Birubiru-san?" she said. "It's me!"

It took forever for Birubiru to emerge from behind that round green door, and when he did, there was a look of discomfort in his face that mirrored Kotonoha's.

And why would it not? There they were, two people, different as day and night, both having just received a life-changing offer neither were one hundred percent willing to take, brought about by someone they hardly personally know.

It was the first time Kotonoha realized that Birubiru was, after all, not at all infallible and therefore prone to indecision just like her. For long they stared at the scrumptious afternoon tea, eating and speaking nothing.

"What will you do now?" asked Kotonoha.

That exact moment their four eyes met. Kotonoha couldn't tell what her lifelong friend was thinking – she only knew herself. Whichever her friend, her earnest, rotund friend who'd never asked anything of her but her attention as he recited another puzzle or another epic poem, would choose, she'd likewise do the same.

But then for just that blink of an eye she thought something in her friend had awakened; an enthusiasm long suppressed, a desire for the long road and the open sky; to wander the green earth, see all that there was to see from East to West, explore all that there was to explore, and come back home the better for it.

"You know what, my lass," he finally said. "Perhaps I should like to undertake this adventure after all."

After tea, again Kotonoha followed her old friend into his study. This time, however, he spoke no more of poetry and riddles. Instead he opened so many maps, those annoted by an elegant cursive writing different from his own. "My mother's maps, once upon a time, drafted by her very hands," he said. "She'd gone as far as here-"

He pointed to a little dot next to that great mountain range cleaving the map in half.

"Rivendell, or Imladris in the tongue of the High Elves who'd sailed West ere my grandfather was born, and there cajoled with those who yet remained – elven music is not something to be missed!"

He laughed in that dry, throaty voice of his. Kotonoha looked him hard, with those bright eyes of hers, curious and questioning.

"Will you make a contract?" she asked, almost on instinct.

"Why, yes, of course! Because I am a Baggins of Bag End, and I don't sail off into the blue without knowing my rights!"

"With a magician?" The mental image of calling on a wandering magician to draft a largely legal and therefore un-magical document was almost too funny, and Kotonoha's lips curved into a soft grin. It lasted all of four seconds before Bilbo regarded her fondly and said,

"A _wizard_ , my lass. Makes no difference. A contract is a wonderful thing; helps you plenty in a pinch and quite much out of it too."

Like before, Kotonoha did not tarry long. If anything she stayed less than she normally did, for her Birubiru was lost in the thrill of the moment, recounting those fanciful tales of wild adventuring alien to a girl who grew up in a mansion in the middle of bustling, no-nonsense Tokyo.

Like before, Birubiru saw her off. He told her again, voice shaky and winded, "Tea is at four, pray do come again," and send Kotonoha her merry way.

Like before, without fanfare, Katsura Kotonoha would invariably wake up, alone in her fleeting happiness, atop the expensive bed fit for three of her, that her parents had bought for her sixth birthday.

Like before, her resolve strengthened.

She would give Itou Makoto a chance, like her Birubiru had given adventuring a chance.


	2. Chapter 2

**\- 2 -**

Kotonoha gave Makoto a chance, as she thought she would.

The very first thing she did, however, was not to give him the nod right away. She'd told her puppy-eyed wannabe-boyfriend that she'd be there whenever and wherever he needed her – no questions asked whatsoever. She'd keep him company, because it was a good thing best shared – but only so long as he kept his hands to himself.

"Otherwise you may not like the consequence," she said, and there her eyes flashed while her lips curled into a smile. She was the star of the school _kendo_ club, and that had to amount to something.

Writing an actual contract would be silly, of course, but clarifying matters wasn't. Useful at any rate, she thought. Makoto, being as love-sick and (at that point) love-starved as he was, agreed without a second's hesitation.

It was a contract, sealed not with signature and pretentious legal-sounding language, but a smile and an embrace.

So began Kotonoha's life with a boyfriend: more work and bother than life without. She'd prepared herself to put up a little: and put up did she have to! Makoto was not that much cuter than the boy she'd turned down less than a year before, and had within him a host of _issues_ and warning signs from a mile away.

Too touchy-feely, yet too indecisive in things that actually mattered.

Too prone to peer pressure, and as limited in wisdom as most of the boys in her year.

And most importantly, for whatever reason he was spending about as much time with her as he did with Saionji.

In other timelines Kotonoha would have missed all the signs. She would have been defenseless and vulnerable and needy, and would have latched on and clung to any shred of hope and affection real or fake. Makoto would be the star to her night, and she wouldn't have had it any other way.

In this universe, a Kotonoha who'd now scoff at bullying and learnt to treasure herself in spite of all that, would be unflinchingly _kind_ if she needed to be: because kindness was a thing best given freely. At the same time kindness did not mean compromising on things uncompromisable, and agreeing to go out with him did not mean he was any more entitled to her body than she was willing to give.

And so she endured. Endured, and stuck to her rules and wisdom and value of her _self_.

Makoto might have been silly and daft, in the way every high-school boy was silly and daft before the girl he fancied, but dumb he was not. That was why, perhaps, when she'd taken him home for a habitual tea at four, when her dear precocious Kokoro asked them why she hadn't given him any, Kotonoha was the only one who blushed: because Makoto went pale as a sheet.

He didn't regain his color until his 'girlfriend' had shushed her sister quietly out of the room, and reassured him with a smile that her _shinai_ was kept in her _bedroom_ , which was the one place Makoto _wasn't_ going to see for at least a couple years (and that was if he was on his best behavior).

And just like that, for the next few month, life was peaceful in a way.

You see, in a way going out with someone wasn't so different from a country forming a defensive pact with another. You provoke one, you provoke the other. Attack the other, you earn the ire of the one. Your enemies would refrain from making you an enemy, lest they get two foes for the price of one. Having Makoto on her side bolstered her cause in the same way two was stronger than one: the bullies left her alone now, and she suspected not entirely because of her growing reputation.

Whether she had wanted so or not, it had worked out that way and Kotonoha had no reason to complain. Though this hadn't been her initial purpose accepting his proposal, not by a long shot.

She wanted to be happy. And the relationship was, at times, genuinely happy.

She had, if nothing else, someone to talk to; who was also a rare insight into the nigh-incomprehensible world of boys her age.

She had someone to have lunch with on the top floor, who'd be willing to try out her seed-cakes (which were delicious) and apple-tarts (which _still_ weren't).

And in those few moments that someone actually tried to pick on her while Makoto was around, well, seeing him leap to her defense (unneeded as it might be) was rather _cute_.

Part of her, that part which would ever long for the Happy Place where she'd stay for hours talking to Birubiru about everything and anything a curious girl could find in his study, was somewhat satiated with that other kind of company. Besides, she could never kiss her dream-guardian the way she kissed Makoto: on the lips, her eyes closed and her cheeks flushing (though she'd still firmly shot down any insinuation that they should go further).

Those were the only months in her life she didn't come back to her Happy Place at all.

* * *

In hindsight, she should have thought the relative silence would herald a brewing storm.

In every universe Kotonoha was prone to walking into places and scenes not meant for her, and hear things meant for her that were extraordinarily mean and harsh. This was no difference.

She wasn't even supposed to stay back in school after hour. In fact, she wouldn't have bothered had she not forgotten a single textbook. Neither would she have bothered with a book, but her Birubiru had taught her to be fastidious whenever books were concerned.

In hindsight, it was not at all surprising for her to find Makoto and Saionji kissing in a classroom against the sunset, like nothing else in the world mattered.. It was not at all surprising for her to quietly leave without causing a scene whatsoever, her face hidden behind her hair. It was not surprising at all for her to feel small, and crushed, and trampled. Because deep inside Katsura Kotonoha was still this very fragile girl with a fragile sense of self, and there was only so much "Tea is at four, pray do come again" can do.

No, what was more surprising was her being waylaid on the way home.

Kiyoura Setsuna wasn't someone you would call "noticeable" - small and soft-spoken as she was, and she wasn't among the band of bullies stalking her all those years. So when that blue ribbon emerged from behind a lamp-post across the road, Kotonoha couldn't help but be startled.

In fact, she didn't even get one word in when Kiyoura walked towards her.

"I saw you come back from school... late," she said. "So you know."

That was all Kiyoura said, but both of them knew what she was talking about. No need to play coy, then.

"What is it to you?" said Kotonoha.

"Quite a lot, actually." She folded her little arms and started circling around Kotonoha like a bird of prey, so cruel, so shrewd, so _in control_. "What would you say, if I told you to leave Itou and Saionji in peace?"

"In _peace_?"

The boldness – if not _insolence –_ was off the chart. Leave them in peace – as if she was the wrongdoer. As if she was not the injured party. Life, in its expression by teenagers, was indeed an unfair and unjust place.

But she steeled herself. She was better than this. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"You _have_ a choice," said Kiyoura. "Between causing more pain to all concerned and _not_ causing all that pain." She turned halfway away, as if speaking to an invisible third person. "Katsura is a smart girl, isn't she?"

It might not have been the other girl's intention, but Kotonoha rationalized her last bit as appealing to her kindness. However she rationalized the matter, she didn't have much of a _real_ choice.

"Very well," she said at last. "Tell Saionji if she had an eye for Itou, then she shouldn't have bothered playing matchmaker. Goodness gracious – how... unrespectable."

That last part she breathed out so naturally, as if it had been Birubiru that had said it rather than her. Kiyoura only looked at her funny, then left with a barely noticeable, but doubtlessly triumphant, smirk.

The first thing she did getting home was jump on her bed, and dream hard of her Happy Place. She didn't even change.

This time, she opened her eyes to a Happy Place... changed.

That perfect round door, green and beautiful, had been hastily bolted shut. " _Away on Year-long holiday_ " wrote the sign hung on the door-knob.

The windows were blurry, and the once-gorgeous garden had lost much of its luster. Weed was growing among the cabbages and pumpkin rows, and the carrots had wilted away.

The mailbox was overly full, as if left unchecked for months upon months. A letter bearing angry handwriting that said " _From the Sackville-Bagginses, With Love (and, unlike you, decency_ )" was placed unceremoniously on top of the mailbox.

Her Birubiru had practiced what he preached: To leave the house behind and ride off into the blue with a wizard and a company of dwarves.

She woke up, without fanfare, alone in her gnawing melancholy and loss, atop the expensive bed fit for three of her, that her parents had bought for her sixth birthday.

* * *

The very next thing she did the next day was to confront her 'boyfriend' about the matter. She refrained from any violent expression of the rage bubbling beneath the surface.

Every other version of Kotonoha was good at smiling, deranged though she might be. This time, in this universe, this version of her did much the same: smiling, while part of her shattered inside. Because one can never get used to betrayal, even if you had not expect much out of the deal to begin with.

There was a part of her, that reel of insanity that would resort to brutal violence as an answer to everything, crying out for some sort of redress involving the violent application of sharp objects to those who have wronged her. This swamp of refuse within her had never gotten a chance to grow out of control, but it was _there_ and as long as it remained there was trouble.

Perhaps at some point during the conversation, short though it might be, she'd let slip an inkling that this side of her _existed._ Perhaps that was why, throughout the confrontation, she could still recall years later, Itou Makoto was shaking like winter had come early. Part of Kotonoha thought the sight was almost worth the heartbreak.

The rest of her, however, was kinder and more restrained. She was, after all, a well-brought-up young lady with more than a few lessons on decorum, manners, and most of all, _kindness –_ which was not to falter in any situation.

"Well, no love lost, I suppose," so she said with a smile, as if it was a simple good-morning. "You need something, you know who to call."

It was indeed a good morning in the way her Birubiru would have liked. Green grass, bright sun, birds singing above the foliage, and plenty of people around chattering.

But she ground her teeth and clenched her fist, and survived the rest of the day without further interference.

 _It's not your fault if he broke the contract first_.

* * *

The closer they came to that culture festival, the more quickly everything seemed to fall apart. Once again Kotonoha felt small, and alone, and so, so defenseless. There were more rumors of Makoto everywhere, of his many escapades, if nothing else. There were more sneering behind her back now, because emotionally fragile or not she _still_ had a pretty good wooden sword handy (she wouldn't use it except for self-defense, but her tormentors didn't need to know that).

The only reason Kotonoha was able to not focus on her school's messy love life (of which she was, however irrelevant, still a party) was the sheer _worry i_ n her heart. She'd tried to check back on her Happy Place often – by which I mean every day. Always she was treated with the same scene: the round door closed and bolted, the garden a right mess, the mailbox overflowing, and complete blackness through the windows.

But then just a few weeks after her breakup, something changed. Kotonoha arrived at her Happy Place and found herself not alone. At the entrance to the smial stood a small group of three and one: three dwarves (or so she thought), short and thick and so well-clad in liveries of iron and steel; and one old man, so very tall in dusty, weathered grey robe, wearing his very, very long white beard like a scarf.

At first the dwarves paid Kotonoha no mind, until the old man noticed her first, and gestured her to come closer – which she did. Now the dwarves turned towards her, and for long regarded her before their leader stood up: taller than all others, yet still half a head shorter than her. His countenance was kingly and alike carven stone. He was clad in a coat of mail that hung to his knees, bright as the moon and twinkling like the stars. Many gems shone so brightly upon the his great crown, and on his back was sheathed a long sword inside a richly jeweled scabbard.

But his eyes were dull and full of sorrow: eyes to which Kotonoha was no stranger, and at once her heart skipped a beat..

"Are you the one Master Baggins called _Koto_?" he asked grimly.

"My name _is_ Katsura Kotonoha," she said with a bow and a slight nod of her head.

The three strangers regarded each other, and there was something alike _pity_ in the way the younger dwarves carried themselves towards her – no, not quite pity. Those downcast eyes, those shaking hands, those glum expressions... was it grief?

At long last the great dwarf spoke, and Kotonoha wished he hadn't.

"The Dwarven Kingdom of Erebor sends her deepest condolences, Miss," he said. "The brave Master Bilbo Baggins fell in battle; may Mahal bless him in whatever hall for which he has now departed."

Kotonoha staggered backwards. "W-what..." All semblance of _manners_ was at once _gone_ from her. "What did you say?"

"My lass," said the old man. "We are deeply sorry. Bilbo Baggins is gone."

Birubiru was gone.

 _Her_ Birubiru was gone.

The adventure had concluded on an ugly note. They'd survived a thousand-mile trek, evil forests and a dragon, only for it to break down at the very last moment.

The dwarves did not go into great detail _what_ exactly happened at the end. All that Kotonoha could make out was a battle, and a brutal one. Thousands upon thousands of goblins and elves and men fighting to the death. They did not describe much, yet Kotonoha felt like she was _there_ , with all the shouting and slashing and slaughtering.

Birubiru did not walk away from it.

Now all that was left of him was a little urn that wouldn't look out of place on his mantelpiece, engraved with the images of battle and dwarves weeping, and set with precious gems so garish they made Kotonoha feel like retching just looking at it.

"It is my wish to inter him beneath the fell, under the halls of my grandfather before me, with an effigy made in his likeness crowned in gems and gold and mithril plenty, so that all of Durin's Folk should gaze upon his tomb and recall his bravery," said Thorin Oakenshield, the dwarven-king. "He was a member of the company, and to me... more than a comrade; and if not for him, the Durin line of ours would have been extinguished that day."

His face was sullen and grim, yet Kotonoha thought she saw what amounted to stone crying. "Yet his dying wish was to be buried here, in the Shire from whence he came, where the grass is green and the sun warm, and where a bright-eyed girl who fancied his seed-cakes and honeyed milk is waiting for his return... in life or in death."

He looked up at Kotonoha, and those eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life. "That... was what he told me."

The dwarves brought something else, too, besides bad news: a piece of paper saying that the heir to Bilbo Baggins' estate was forthwith entitled to one-fourteenth of the treasures of Smaug the dragon, which was enough to buy a small country and everything within it.

Yet tenfold the hoard of Erebor ere Smaug's depredation could not bring Birubiru back.

Kotonoha didn't know what come over her. The moment Thorin Oakenshield the dwarven king was handing her the deed, she _snatched_ the sheet, and tore it into a million pieces. Then she snatched Thorin, too, by the collar and with strength she didn't know she had lifted him two feet into the air.

It took a wizard slamming his staff and much tugging and begging from the other dwarves before Kotonoha would let King Thorin Oakenshield back on his feet, ignominiously gasping for air.

"THERE SHALL BE NO BLOODSHED," he cried with a voice fell and terrible, "ON OUR HOBBIT'S FUNERAL!"

Years later, Kili and Fili, the two dwarves who accompanied the king, would relate tale of this demoness who very nearly cut Thorin Oakenshield King Under the Mountain open. With her bare hands. They'd call her Durin's Slasher; and so enshrined in the legends of the dwarrows were her deeds, nonexistent and exaggerated as they were, that well into the Fourth Age the dwarves of Erebor and Khazad-dum down below would maintain a company made of the very best and most fearless of all dwarves. Longbeard Demon-Fighters they were called, clad in the finest armament the singing forges of those places could make.

There, in their deepest and darkest halls of stone, the dwarves would speak among themselves, in the whispering tongue of their kind, that even that much might not be enough to save their kin, were the Slasher to awake again from her slumber and wreck terrible vengeance on the folk of Durin who had let her Bilbo Baggins die.

But that would be a story for another day.

As _our_ story went, there was no tea that day. But there was a funeral, attended by three dwarves and one wizard and one girl who'd hung around the deceased for most of her life.

Gandalf the Grey, for that was the wizard's name and a name Kotonoha would likely hate with all her being till the rest of her days, had decided not to inform Birubiru's folk of the circumstance of his passing. Though he did slip into an envelope something looking suspiciously like a golden ring, and put it on the hobbit's mantelpiece.

"For posterity," she heard him murmur to himself. And there was that part of her, that confused part within every adolescent girl that would regard a father-figure as a _man_ rather than a father, that couldn't help wondering if the wizard loved him in the same way that juvenile part of her loved him.

Whichever the case, at the wake's end the wizard did call her away, and under the shade of the deceased's garden passed to her a small packet.

It was a book. A journal, whose leather-bound cover was well-worn by weather and caked in the dust of so many unnamed roads across the breadth of Arda. On the cover, " _There and Back Again_ " was written, only to be scratched out at the last minute.

"Poor old Bilbo had wished for you to have this even if you would have nothing else of his," he said. "He had left it in my possession just before the Battle of the Five Armies – as such nasty business is now known to history. As if he knew he wouldn't survive."

Having said and done all that could be said and done, the wizard then disappeared just like he had come – like a ghost of an era bygone, seeking to fix the mistakes an age and a half ere Kotonoha was a fetus in her mother's womb. This, again, was another story of which Kotonoha was not a party.

Like before, without fanfare, Katsura Kotonoha woke up, alone in her crushing sorrow, atop the expensive bed fit for three of her, that her parents had bought for her sixth birthday.

Unlike before, her hands were clutching that journal, cradled inside her shaking grip.

It would be days before she could bear to even open the volume, much less read it.

It was weeks before she could flip to the very final page – hastily scrawled not by pen but by charcoal, dug up in that corner of the world where lay a single mountain in its lonesome.

" _Koto, my dear lass,_

 _If you are reading this, that means I won't be able to see you any more. Though despair not, for it was for a just cause that I give my life._

 _Of regret in life I have little. I have traveled further East than most hobbits of my age. I have been in the company of elves, and seen the pine trees and the waterfalls, and explored caves dark and deep, and wielded a sword instead of a walking stick, even won myself some fame, meager as they were._

 _I have taken part in a quest that would no doubt become famous in the years to come. I have ridden the world of a dragon terrible and sinister. I have had the fortune to fight alongside a wonderful company, and give them back a home long thought lost._

 _And by Eru, I have met you. I, who is by chance childless, could not have asked for a better conversation partner, or a better fellow lorist or cook or tea-haver... or a better daughter, if I'd prayed._

 _The Valar protect you, wherever on the green earth you may be._

 _Tea is at four, but you will have to make your own from now on."_

* * *

Kotonoha decided, half-catatonic as she was, that the culture festival mattered not a lick. She let everything drop – everything.

At the bonfire Makoto danced with Sekai, and if there was any doubt he was going to end up with the foxy brunette (while enjoying his share of flings on the wayside), it was now completely shattered.

It spoke volumes about her sanity that she didn't care any more. What she did, was run away and seek refuge. Where? She didn't know. She walked, and walked, and walked along the darkened hallway of her school as most were having fun in ways both proper and improper for teenagers.

Then again, it was like Kotonoha's destiny to be approached when she was at her most vulnerable. Not Makoto. Not Sekai. Not even Setsuna, and certainly not Taisuke (whose skull she would have had more than half a mind to smash if he had tried).

No, it was this quiet and unassuming librarian boy from the other class, who stood shorter than she did and who smelled vaguely of books and fresh coffee. And to say he _approached_ her was a bit misleading; more like he tapped her on the shoulder as she was sleeping in the school library. She was dreaming, or trying to at any rate, of her Happy Place that now lay desolated and cold.

"We're closed," he said. "I'm sorry, but..." He stopped, and looked her in the eyes. "Katsura-san? Are you alright?"

The name, she recalled, was Ashikaga Yuuki; one of the many freshmen who never stood out too much. Kotonoha didn't recall _how_ she knew his name. Perhaps she'd asked someone. Perhaps someone'd spoken his name in front of her. Or perhaps they'd even talked before. She didn't recall – and frankly speaking didn't care that she didn't recall.

But he looked at her and gasped, and started stammering in earnest.

"W-was it Itou?" he asked, and there was that silent suppressed rage in his voice. "Did he hurt you? Did he-"

"No," said Kotonoha. "You don't want to hear."

Part of her, that violent bit ever lying dormant within, thought it might have been better if Makoto had tried whatever Yuuki was thinking he had. She would have had an excuse to hit him back, and perhaps make herself feel better.

"That's alright," said the boy. He stood up, and hesitated for a second. Then, fist clenched, he walked over to the doors and windows, and closed them shut.

"I... I would like to help you," he said, and sat down next to her. "I-if you wouldn't mind, I'm willing to listen-"

Kotonoha flinched, and her hands just so instinctively curled into fists. _Defend yourself_ , she thought: because she was only vulnerable when she _let_ herself be; and she _wasn't_ going to let that happen. Not today, not _ever_.

But then Yuuki jumped up and backed away, his concerned look now mingled with abject terror.

"I-I mean, you don't have to if you don't want, but if you want..."

Whatever went through Kotonoha's head at that time was as much a mystery to herself as it was to others. Perhaps she was thinking nothing at all, or conversely so choked with thoughts and information and _emotions_ of all sorts, shapes and sizes that her brain was as good as paralyzed.

But she looked up at Yuuki once more, and tapped at that seat he was going to sit down at.

"Don't leave," she said.

And Yuuki did as he was told. He said nothing; but he did look at her, softly and with hands shaking. Awkward, but he tried – she knew this much.

Long did she stare at the table, her skin prickly from the boy's gaze.

"What-what would you do," she began, "w-when your b-b-best friend is... gone? A-and you didn't... you don't... _never_ get so say goodbye?"

She didn't know why she told him. Maybe she was so desperate to _tell_ someone, anyone of the story of her lifelong friend now no more. Maybe she craved attention – that too.

He didn't ask any question. He only nodded, and when she wanted to cry, he offered his shoulder.

More importantly, he _believed_ her. That was more than she could say for basically anyone who'd heard her outlandish tale.

* * *

Months turned into years. Years into decades.

The bright-eyed girl with a soft spot for seed-cakes and honeyed milk and sweets made into the likeness of trees and flowers and the sun and the moon had gone to university. She'd found a job befitting of her skills and her resolve, and that education wrought by school and her Happy Place in equal measures.

For a time she'd not cared much about how her old classmates had fared. She did know that Kiyoura had left for Paris, and at some point she'd dragged Saionji with her (at the behest of the latter's mother).

Taisuke got into trouble with the law shortly after they left school. Everyone was hushing and shushing on that matter, and from the attitude alone – and what she knew of him before – Kotonoha could make an educated guess as to _what_ and _how_.

Her former tormentors, suffice to say, grew up. She'd forgiven them for the most part – and even had a fairly amicable friendship with Otome, due no small part to their working in the same field now.

And Makoto? All that Kotonoha knew was that he did not go to university. Whatever happened to him was anyone's guess. At any rate she did not think of him overly much: she'd missed the company and the lunches, and the kisses on those good days.

But not for too long.

Somewhere down the line, she started spending more and more time with that brown-haired boy who stood shorter than she did, who smelled like books and fresh coffee most of the time, who'd apologize when he'd done nothing wrong, and whose sense of humor was hard to grasp yet profound.

She'd found out, to her pleasure, that Yuuki only remained silent when he'd judged it imprudent to speak (which meant some ninety percent of the time). When they were alone he'd talked and joked, and made her smile and laugh and _happy_ , because bookish people are without a doubt a force to be reckoned with when they made to good use their accumulated knowledge. Doubly so if their motives were of kindness to begin with.

At some point, it became less of her relying on him like an emotional crutch.

At some point, she'd take her hand, and he'd take hers, and they'd roam the streets of Tokyo living the live that young people were wont to live, smiling and grinning all the way.

At some point, he jumped her with a grin, telling her he'd land a job – not necessarily a dream job, but it was a start and a start was worth a celebration as any. And a kiss, she decided, was worth a hundred kegs of beer and a thousand gourds of sake. Yuuki agreed.

At some point, he cobbled together all of his humble entry-level salary, and bought her something small and round and golden, of the sort that a figure skater was like to give another figure skater. "I-it's not much," he said, with that blush he'd wear everywhere and that heart of his on his sleeve, "but-".

She didn't let him finish his clumsy proposal. She dragged him up, and let her lips do the answering – and that was that.

There it was, the secret. No charms, no magic, no backdooring, no taking a sneaky photo of a girl without her knowing. Kindness freely given would beget itself in kind.

And so it was, that Katsura Kotonoha became Ashikaga Kotonoha, and in time mothered two lovely children.

But that day, Kotonoha's childhood and that Happy Place of hers had died along with Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, buried in the dark earth beneath the green grass where shone the golden sun of the Shire.

And forget she would not.

Those who visited Ashikaga-san's house – her new house, bought with the sweat of her brows, not the one she inherited – might be curious to find on her family altar a small, unassuming tablet just slightly beneath her late family's. A journal torn and battered was nested against the tablet, which read, in calligraphic _kanji_ and _kana_ , 「シャイア の バギンズ・ビルボ – 友達」.

If any visitor would ask her who the deceased was, and what he had to do with the Katsura and/or Ashikaga clan, she would only smile, and usher them back to the living-room for another slice of seed-cake. **  
**

Those who worked with her would realize two things about the unassuming, petite office lady. One, she would come to work incredibly early. And two, she'd stop at four in the afternoon. She'd jump into the office kitchen, and, as if an instinct, whip up an afternoon tea for her workmates, of honeyed milk and seed-cakes buttered golden. "Tea at four," she would announce, as if it was as natural a thing as the sun rising and the moon setting.

It was a habit she would maintain to the last day of her life on earth.


End file.
